Arbitrarily large neighborly families of symmetric convex polytopes

A family of convex d-polytopes in E _d is called neighborly if every two of them have a (d–1)-dimensional intersection. Settling an old problem of B. Grünbaum, we show that there exist arbitrarily large neighborly families of centrally (or any other prescribed type of) symmetric convex d-poliytopes in E _d ,for all d3; moreover, they can all be congruent, if d4.A version of this paper has been written while the author visited R. K. Guy in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in the summer of 1981; the author wishes to thank Louise and Richard Guy for their warm hospitality.     

On the smallest disk containing a planar reduced convex body

A convex body R of Euclidean space E ^d is said to be reduced if every convex body $ P \subset R $ different from R has thickness smaller than the thickness $ \Delta(R) $ of R. We prove that every planar reduced body R is contained in a disk of radius $ {1\over 2}\sqrt 2 \cdot \Delta(R) $. For $ d \geq 3 $, an analogous property is not true because we can construct reduced bodies of thickness 1 and of arbitrarily large diameter.     

Convex bodies with extremal volumes having prescribed brightness in finitely many directions

We consider the class of convex bodies in ⁿ with prescribed projection (n – 1)-volumes along finitely many fixed directions. We prove that in such a class there exists a unique body (up to translation) with maximumn-volume. The maximizer is a centrally symmetric polytope and the normal vectors to its facets depend only on the assigned directions.Conditions for the existence of bodies with minimumn-volume in the class defined above are given. Each minimizer is a polytope, and an upper bound for the number of its facets is established.Work partially supported by Istituto di Analisi Globale e Applicazioni, CNR, Firenze.     

Some remarks concerning kissing numbers,blocking numbers and covering numbers

This article shows an inequality concerning blocking numbers and Hadwiger's covering numbers and presents a strange phenomenon concerning kissing numbers and blocking numbers. As a simple corollary, we can improve the known upper bounds for Hadwiger's covering numbers ford-dimensional centrally symmetric convex bodies to 3 ^d –1.     

Mean projections and finite packings of convex bodies

Consider the convex hullQ ofn non-overlapping translates of a convex bodyC inE ^d ,n be large. IfQ has minimali-dimensional projection, 1i<d then we prove thatQ is approximately a sphere.     

On the cube problem of Las Vergnas

We prove a conjecture of Las Vergnas in dimensions d7: The matroid of the d-dimensional cube C ^d has a unique reorientation class. This extends a result of Las Vergnas, Roudneff and Salaün in dimension 4. Moreover, we determine the automorphism group G ^d of the matroid of the d-cube C ^d for arbitrary dimension d, and we discuss its relation to the Coxeter group of C ^d . We introduce matroid facets of the matroid of the d-cube in order to evaluate the order of G ^d . These matroid facets turn out to be arbitrary pairs of parallel subfacets of the cube. We show that the Euclidean automorphism group W ^d is a proper subgroup of the group G ^d of all matroid symmetries of the d-cube by describing genuine matroid symmetries for each Euclidean facet. A main theorem asserts that any one of these matroid symmetries together with the Euclidean Coxeter symmetries generate the full automorphism group G ^d . For the proof of Las Vergnas' conjecture we use essentially these symmetry results together with the fact that the reorientation class of an oriented matroid is determined by the labeled lower rank contractions of the oriented matroid. We also describe the Folkman-Lawrence representation of the vertex figure of the d-cube and a contraction of it. Finally, we apply our method of proof to show a result of Las Vergnas, Roudneff, and Salaün that the matroid of the 24-cell has a unique reorientation class, too.     

Some Erdös-Szekeres type results about points in space

The Erdös-Szekeres convexn-gon theorem states that for anyn3, there is a smallest integerf(n) such that any set of at leastf(n) points in the planeE ², no three collinear, contains the vertices of a convexn-gon. We consider three versions of this result as applied to convexly independent points and convex polytopes inE ^d >,d2.     

Stability of the Blaschke-Santaló and the affine isoperimetric inequality

A stability version of the Blaschke-Santaló inequality and the affine isoperimetric inequality for convex bodies of dimension n?3 is proved. The first step is the reduction to the case when the convex body is o-symmetric and has axial rotational symmetry. This step works for related inequalities compatible with Steiner symmetrization. Secondly, for these convex bodies, a stability version of the characterization of ellipsoids by the fact that each hyperplane section is centrally symmetric is established.     

On the number of antipodal or strictly antipodal pairs of points in finite subsets ofR d,II

The paper is a continuation of [MM], namely containing several statements related to the concept of antipodal and strictly antipodal pairs of points in a subsetX ofR ^d , which has cardinalityn. The pointsx _i, x_jX are called antipodal if each of them is contained in one of two different parallel supporting hyperplanes of the convex hull ofX. If such hyperplanes contain no further point ofX, thenx _i, x_j are even strictly antipodal. We shall prove some lower bounds on the number of strictly antipodal pairs for givend andn. Furthermore, this concept leads us to a statement on the quotient of the lengths of longest and shortest edges of speciald-simplices, and finally a generalization (concerning strictly antipodal segments) is proved.Research (partially) supported by Hungarian National Foundation for Scientific Research, grant no. 1817     

Common supports as fixed points

A family S of sets in R ^d is sundered if for each way of choosing a point from rd+1 members of S, the chosen points form the vertex-set of an (r–1)-simplex. Bisztriczky proved that for each sundered family S of d convex bodies in R ^d , and for each partition (S , S ), of S, there are exactly two hyperplanes each of which supports all the members of S and separates the members of S from the members of S . This note provides an alternate proof by obtaining each of the desired supports as (in effect) a fixed point of a continuous self-mapping of the cartesian product of the bodies.     

On the vertex index of convex bodies

We introduce the vertex index, vein(K), of a given centrally symmetric convex body K⊂Rd, which, in a sense, measures how well K can be inscribed into a convex polytope with small number of vertices. This index is closely connected to the illumination parameter of a body, introduced earlier by the first named author, and, thus, related to the famous conjecture in Convex Geometry about covering of a d-dimensional body by d² smaller positively homothetic copies. We provide asymptotically sharp estimates (up to a logarithmic term) of this index in the general case. More precisely, we show that for every centrally symmetric convex body K⊂Rd one has

     

Volumes of complementary projections of convex polytopes

The centrally symmetric convex polytopes whose images under orthogonal projection on to any pair of orthogonal complementary subspaces ofE ^d have numerically equal volumes are shown hare to be certain cartesian products of polygons and line segments. Ford3, the general projection property in fact follows from that for pairs of hyperplanes and lines. A conjecture is made about the problem in the non-centrally symmetric case.     

The isodiametric problem with lattice-point constraints

In this paper, the isodiametric problem for centrally symmetric convex bodies in the Euclidean d-space containing no interior non-zero point of a lattice L is studied. It is shown that the intersection of a suitable ball with the Dirichlet-Voronoi cell of 2L is extremal, i.e., it has minimum diameter among all bodies with the same volume. It is conjectured that these sets are the only extremal bodies, which is proved for all three dimensional and several prominent lattices. Authors’ addresses: M. A. Hernández Cifre, Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad de Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, 30100-Murcia, Spain; A. Schürmann, Institut für Algebra und Geometrie, Otto-von-Guericke Universit?t Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany; F. Vallentin, Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI), Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands     

On toric h-vectors of centrally symmetric polytopes

We prove tight lower bounds for the coefficients of the toric h-vector of an arbitrary centrally symmetric polytope generalizing previous results due to R. Stanley and the author using toric varieties. Our proof here is based on the theory of combinatorial intersection cohomology for normal fans of polytopes developed by G. Barthel, J.-P. Brasselet, K. Fieseler and L. Kaup, and independently by P. Bressler and V. Lunts. This theory is also valid for nonrational polytopes when there is no standard correspondence with toric varieties. In this way we can establish our bounds for centrally symmetric polytopes even without requiring them to be rational. Received: 24 March 2004     

Divergence for s-concave and log concave functions

We prove new entropy inequalities for log concave and s-concave functions that strengthen and generalize recently established reverse log Sobolev and Poincaré inequalities for such functions. This leads naturally to the concept of f-divergence and, in particular, relative entropy for s-concave and log concave functions. We establish their basic properties, among them the affine invariant valuation property. Applications are given in the theory of convex bodies.     

A criterion for finite lattice coverings

For a centrally symmetric convex and a covering lattice L for K, a lattice polygon P is called a covering polygon, if . We prove that P is a covering polygon, if and only if its boundary bd(P) is covered by (L ∩ P) + K. Further we show that this characterization is false for non-symmetric planar convex bodies and in Euclidean d–space, d ≥ 3, even for the unit ball K = B ^d. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The isodiametric problem with lattice-point constraints

In this paper, the isodiametric problem for centrally symmetric convex bodies in the Euclidean d-space \Bbb R^d{\Bbb R}^d containing no interior non-zero point of a lattice L is studied. It is shown that the intersection of a suitable ball with the Dirichlet-Voronoi cell of 2L is extremal, i.e., it has minimum diameter among all bodies with the same volume. It is conjectured that these sets are the only extremal bodies, which is proved for all three dimensional and several prominent lattices.     

On linear sections of lattice packings

Ind-dimensional euclidean spaceE ^d letP be a lattice packing of subsets ofE ^d , and letH be ak-dimensional linear subspace ofE ^d (0<k<d). Then,P induces a packing inH consisting of all setsPH withPP. The relationship between the density of this packing inH and the density ofP is investigated. A result from the theory of uniform distribution of linear forms is used to prove an integral formula that enables one to evaluate the density of the induced packing inH (under suitable assumptions on the sets ofP and the functionals used to define the densities). It is shown that this result leads to explicit formulas for the averages of the induced densities under the rotation ofH. If the densities are taken with respect to the mean cross-sectional measures of convex bodies one obtains analogues of the integral geometric intersection formulas of Crofton.Dedicated to Professor E. Hlawka on the occasion of his seventieth birthdaySupported by National Science Foundation Research Grant DMS 8300825.     

On combinatorial and affine automorphisms of polytopes

We disprove the longstanding conjecture that every combinatorial automorphism of the boundary complex of a convex polytope in euclidean spaceE ^d can be realised by an affine transformation ofE ^d .